We have all experienced struggling to do the right thing. One part of us knows what we should do and wants to do right, while another part wants to do the opposite. Often it seems easier to be bad (or just lazy) than to be good. How can we resolve this internal conflict?
When we do what is right, we experience happiness. The desire to do good comes from our unselfish mind, which directs our thoughts, words, and actions to benefit others. When we act upon the desires of our good minds, although we may experience some discomfort at first, we end up feeling happy and fulfilled. For example, suppose you borrow a lot of money from a good friend. It may not be easy to pay it back, but if you do, a more trusting and loving friendship is likely to result.
However, from within comes another desire, a desire of the selfish mind, telling you to do what you know is wrong: cheat your friend by not paying back the money, so you can keep it for yourself. This selfish mind says, “Oh, he has plenty of money. He doesn't need it like I do.” You start thinking that if you avoid your friend long enough, he will never ask for the money back and you won’t have to repay him! So, for a whole year, you avoid him. He never asks for the money back, and one part of you thinks, “Oh, I was so smart.” But the reality is you will probably also feel guilty about what you did. Your unselfish mind knows you did something wrong. Because of your selfishness, you betrayed and lost a good friend. In the end you feel deep regret: “How could I do such a thing?” The temporary satisfaction you gained has been replaced by lasting sorrow.
Although, deep down, we want to be good people and do right by others, we also must deal with our selfish desires. Although we know these desires are wrong, they are still very powerful. How can we defeat them?
The books and magazines we read, the TV shows and films we watch, the music we enjoy and the people with whom we associate — all these have an influence on us through the thoughts they stimulate.
Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that featured a noble hero and thought, “I would like to be like that”? Have the inspiring words or life stories of peacemakers like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi, or other leaders ever moved you to want to work for a more just and kind world? Are there poems or books of wisdom, religious books, or books of spiritual inspiration that have guided, instructed, and comforted you? Are there songs that stir your emotions and uplift you? Do you have favorite sayings or mottoes that guide you at times? Has the sight of a flower garden, a fertile field, clouds on a sunny day, or a beautiful shell on the sand ever made you feel happy and satisfied? Good images in our minds and good thoughts and words stimulate good and unselfish desires, which lead us to do good actions and make us feel happy. We find that it is a joy to help and serve others. We are inspired to create beauty in all we do.
By following our good thoughts, we develop good habits, such as being industrious, respectful and honest. Over time, these habits create in us a good character. Finally, our heart becomes good. We find we are no longer dominated by selfish thoughts and desires. We no longer have to struggle to be good. In fact, being unselfish has become natural to us. We cannot help expressing goodness. We sincerely love and care for others. We rejoice in their happiness and prosperity. When people hurt us, we don’t feel resentful or seek revenge, but are willing to forgive.
All this is a process, often a lifelong one. However, the more we put the above into practice, the more we will experience this kind of satisfaction. . On the other hand, if we allow bad images to fill our minds, we will have bad thoughts. Such images appeal to and stimulate our selfish desires. We must admit: part of us enjoys listening to and thinking about things that go wrong for other people. For example, we may enjoy, in a rather perverse way, hearing bad things about famous people. That’s why we have celebrity magazines, full of gossip and scandal. We may take perverse pleasure in hearing bad news or watching violence done to others—at least on TV.
Pornography also appeals to our selfish desires. Instead of uplifting our spirit with a vision of unselfish love with another person, it fills us with lustful, self-centered thoughts and desires. Although we know it is wrong, we experience an evil joy from indulging in it. We become more interested in our fantasies and the pictures that feed them than we are in caring for real people. This may make us withdraw into isolation and loneliness, and we will not develop the social skills we need to get along with other people. We will become more self-centered. Our relationships with the opposite sex will suffer as people dimly sense that we do not appreciate them for who they are but are looking at them as an object of carnal desires. We will find ourselves less able to truly love and relate to a real person.
Sometimes such images cause us to imagine doing things we know are wrong. Even though we may never intend to carry out these actions, all these selfish thoughts and desires will eventually come out in some way. People who commit sexual crimes are almost always deeply involved in the consumption of pornography. Eventually, they want to live out their fantasies with real people—whether the other people (sometimes children) are willing or not. Violent movies or TV shows with shouting, cursing, and discord may lead us to argue with our friends and family as we subconsciously imitate what we have seen.
Selfish desires lead to bad habits, such as being lazy, rude, lewd, and dishonest. Eventually, our entire character is corrupted. At the end of this downward path, we come to have an extremely selfish heart incapable of loving and being loved and actually capable of doing great harm to others.
Within each of us, selfishness and unselfishness are at war with one another. Our good desires are often shadowed over by our bad desires. Even the best things we do are often tarnished by some selfish motivation. On the other hand, even the worst person possesses a conscience which continually urges the person toward unselfish goodness. As was stated in the section above, we can encourage our selfish nature or our unselfish nature by the types of things we allow ourselves to interact with and the types of thoughts we have.
Two Wolves: A Native American Story
An old man's grandson was angry at a schoolmate who had done him an injustice. The grandfather said, "Let me tell you a story, Grandson. I, too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have done something against me, as they feel no sorrow for what they have done. But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die of it. I have struggled with these feelings many times."
He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.
But the other wolf is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."
The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"
The grandfather solemnly replied, "The one I feed."
Notable quotes
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Each of us is…tragically divided against ourselves. A persistent civil war rages within all of our lives."
Latin poet Ovid: "I see and approve the better things, but follow worse."
Greek philosopher Plato: The charioteer of the human soul drives a pair of horses. "One of the horses is noble and of noble breed, but the other quite the opposite in breed and character. Therefore in our case the driving is necessarily difficult and troublesome."
Religions have recognized the presence of a great contradiction inside of people too.
In Christianity, St. Paul wrote: "I do not do the good that I want to do; but I do the evil that I don't want to do."
The Mahabharata of Hinduism says: “I know what is good but I am not inclined to do it; I know also what is bad, but I do not refrain from doing it.”
Buddhist scriptures: “Although they wish, ‘Would that we might live in friendship, without hatred, injury…’ they still live in enmity, hating, injuring...”
This inner conflict is tearing us apart. We are like a cup with a hole in it, made for a purpose that it cannot fulfill, continually draining out when it is meant to be full. We are meant to be good and happy, but due to this contradiction, we never experience complete fulfillment.
The conflicts of our world are due to the conflict within each of us. Because we are not at peace with ourselves, we easily create conflict with others. Woe to anyone who crosses our path when we are in a bad mood! The conflict between men and women, between ethnic groups, between nations — all are reflections of the conflict within each of us.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
English novelist Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tells vividly of inner conflict, or as Stevenson puts it: "the perennial war" between the good and evil selves.
Gentle Dr. Jekyll, a doctor, scientist, and humanitarian, struggles with sins he does not name, sometimes indulging himself in them. He begins to notice in himself two different natures, both of which are a strong part of him: "I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I labored in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering." Both sinner and saint are inside of him; part of him. He concludes that "man is not one, but truly two" and devises in his laboratory a potion that will at last separate the evil nature within him from the good. The evil side comes out in the form of a man he names Mr. Hyde.
When Dr. Jekyll is first taken over by Mr. Hyde's personality, he says, "I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine." Although he inhabits Dr. Jekyll's body, Hyde does not physically resemble the good doctor. Rather, "evil was written broadly and plainly on the face…Evil besides (which I still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay."
"I had now two characters as well as two appearances," wrote Jekyll. "One was wholly evil…inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure…from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone." Hyde is all the evil concentrated in Dr. Jekyll's soul expressed fully for the first time.
Dr. Jekyll labors by day to make scientific discoveries that will help humanity; he treats patients; he even works to undo any evil Hyde has done in the night. His goodness and service to others comforts him, but he begins to notice something. The more he is let out to do whatever he wants, the more powerful Hyde is getting inside of him. He begins "to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown…and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine. Where in the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to point to this: that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse."
Jekyll decides to take the potion no more, and he enjoys a period of peace and joy with his conscience approving of him once again. But after a time "I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as Hyde struggled after freedom. At last, in a moment of weakness, he gives in and drinks the potion again. Hyde is none the weaker for being kept inside so long. "My devil had long been caged, he came out roaring."
This time Hyde commits a brutal murder. Jekyll is firmer in his resolve to never take the potion again. However, he does indulge himself in some sinning, similar to what he had done before he began drinking the potion. Now this alone is enough to transform him into Hyde. At last, knowing that murderous Hyde, his most evil self, has won the battle and is now the stronger of the two, Jekyll commits suicide to end Hyde's crimes.
Discussion
Lasting happiness is possible only when we eliminate the conflict within ourselves. We do this by strengthening the good side of our character so that it wins over us. As we said above, we should fill our minds with good images and unselfish thoughts. Every time a bad thought enters, we should quickly reject it and think about something good instead. This can be a struggle, but we can help ourselves by the methods mentioned in the previous section: reading uplifting literature, listening to inspiring music, doing good deeds, and speaking positively with and about others.
We also should be completely honest with ourselves about our thoughts. We can best do this by confessing them to someone we trust. Evil loves to lurk in dark secret places. Exposing our bad thoughts by telling them to a mature person we trust, such as a parent or minister, can help us to defeat them. We should be careful, however, that in doing so we are not seeking for empathy or justification or to drag someone else down with us, but are doing it out of a sincere desire to be better.
If our thoughts have led to a selfish or wrongful action, we should confess and apologize, seeking to put right any harm we have done. It is much easier to do this if we can empathize with the person we have hurt by putting ourselves in his or her shoes.
We must strive to cultivate good habits and do good deeds, serving others in whatever way we can. For example, if we are tempted to keep some treat for ourselves, eating it alone in secret, we can immediately take a step toward goodness by deciding to share it with someone else. If the telephone rings, instead of staying comfortable and letting another family member jump up to answer it, we can be the one who volunteers first. In small ways like this, day-by-day, we can challenge our selfishness and develop our unselfishness until thinking of others first becomes natural.
We may think that we will profit by living selfishly. The world seems to teach us this. However, when we are selfish, we become so wrapped up in our own needs and desires that we are unable to connect deeply with others. We have built a wall between ourselves and other people. We can never find the happiness and fulfillment we want that way.
You probably have noticed that you are most happy when you are involved in caring for others. When we are genuinely concerned with making others happy, the brightest qualities of our character shine through. We become someone we really like and whom others like as well. Then we will have found true joy, happiness, and peace within.
Questions for Reflection
1. What is your “shadow” side like?
2. What is your “bright side” like?
3. How does each side affect your relations with others?
4. Why is it important to be careful what we allow into our minds?
5. What does it mean to put yourself “in someone else's shoes”?
6. How can this help us to strengthen our good side?
7. How does selfishness separate us from others?
8. How does this prevent us from experiencing true happiness?
9. Have you ever experienced a deep joy through helping someone? Describe it.
Reflection Exercise: “Controlling Myself”
After completing the previous exercise, reflect on the following:
1. Why, if I dislike a certain kind of attitude or behavior in others, do I find it in myself?
2. How successful was I in controlling my undesirable behavior?
3. Why do I find it so difficult to control my own thinking and behavior?
4. What kind of person do I really want to be?
Challenge for the Week
Write down five character traits that you least like about yourself (for example, disloyalty, laziness, lying, etc.). Choose one of these “shadow” traits to focus on during this week. Make a promise to yourself to watch and deal with this particular aspect of your “shadow”. Write down your ideas and plans for changing this shadow into something bright. Check yourself at the end of the week to see how you did. This is a good way to help you become aware of and change undesirable aspects of your character.
Resources
An illustrated narration of the story about the two wolves:
Conflicting Desires
We have all experienced struggling to do the right thing. One part of us knows what we should do and wants to do right, while another part wants to do the opposite. Often it seems easier to be bad (or just lazy) than to be good. How can we resolve this internal conflict?
When we do what is right, we experience happiness. The desire to do good comes from our unselfish mind, which directs our thoughts, words, and actions to benefit others. When we act upon the desires of our good minds, although we may experience some discomfort at first, we end up feeling happy and fulfilled. For example, suppose you borrow a lot of money from a good friend. It may not be easy to pay it back, but if you do, a more trusting and loving friendship is likely to result.
However, from within comes another desire, a desire of the selfish mind, telling you to do what you know is wrong: cheat your friend by not paying back the money, so you can keep it for yourself. This selfish mind says, “Oh, he has plenty of money. He doesn't need it like I do.” You start thinking that if you avoid your friend long enough, he will never ask for the money back and you won’t have to repay him! So, for a whole year, you avoid him. He never asks for the money back, and one part of you thinks, “Oh, I was so smart.” But the reality is you will probably also feel guilty about what you did. Your unselfish mind knows you did something wrong. Because of your selfishness, you betrayed and lost a good friend. In the end you feel deep regret: “How could I do such a thing?” The temporary satisfaction you gained has been replaced by lasting sorrow.
Although, deep down, we want to be good people and do right by others, we also must deal with our selfish desires. Although we know these desires are wrong, they are still very powerful. How can we defeat them?
The books and magazines we read, the TV shows and films we watch, the music we enjoy and the people with whom we associate — all these have an influence on us through the thoughts they stimulate.
Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that featured a noble hero and thought, “I would like to be like that”? Have the inspiring words or life stories of peacemakers like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi, or other leaders ever moved you to want to work for a more just and kind world? Are there poems or books of wisdom, religious books, or books of spiritual inspiration that have guided, instructed, and comforted you? Are there songs that stir your emotions and uplift you? Do you have favorite sayings or mottoes that guide you at times? Has the sight of a flower garden, a fertile field, clouds on a sunny day, or a beautiful shell on the sand ever made you feel happy and satisfied? Good images in our minds and good thoughts and words stimulate good and unselfish desires, which lead us to do good actions and make us feel happy. We find that it is a joy to help and serve others. We are inspired to create beauty in all we do.
By following our good thoughts, we develop good habits, such as being industrious, respectful and honest. Over time, these habits create in us a good character. Finally, our heart becomes good. We find we are no longer dominated by selfish thoughts and desires. We no longer have to struggle to be good. In fact, being unselfish has become natural to us. We cannot help expressing goodness. We sincerely love and care for others. We rejoice in their happiness and prosperity. When people hurt us, we don’t feel resentful or seek revenge, but are willing to forgive.
All this is a process, often a lifelong one. However, the more we put the above into practice, the more we will experience this kind of satisfaction. . On the other hand, if we allow bad images to fill our minds, we will have bad thoughts. Such images appeal to and stimulate our selfish desires. We must admit: part of us enjoys listening to and thinking about things that go wrong for other people. For example, we may enjoy, in a rather perverse way, hearing bad things about famous people. That’s why we have celebrity magazines, full of gossip and scandal. We may take perverse pleasure in hearing bad news or watching violence done to others—at least on TV.
Pornography also appeals to our selfish desires. Instead of uplifting our spirit with a vision of unselfish love with another person, it fills us with lustful, self-centered thoughts and desires. Although we know it is wrong, we experience an evil joy from indulging in it. We become more interested in our fantasies and the pictures that feed them than we are in caring for real people. This may make us withdraw into isolation and loneliness, and we will not develop the social skills we need to get along with other people. We will become more self-centered. Our relationships with the opposite sex will suffer as people dimly sense that we do not appreciate them for who they are but are looking at them as an object of carnal desires. We will find ourselves less able to truly love and relate to a real person.
Sometimes such images cause us to imagine doing things we know are wrong. Even though we may never intend to carry out these actions, all these selfish thoughts and desires will eventually come out in some way. People who commit sexual crimes are almost always deeply involved in the consumption of pornography. Eventually, they want to live out their fantasies with real people—whether the other people (sometimes children) are willing or not. Violent movies or TV shows with shouting, cursing, and discord may lead us to argue with our friends and family as we subconsciously imitate what we have seen.
Selfish desires lead to bad habits, such as being lazy, rude, lewd, and dishonest. Eventually, our entire character is corrupted. At the end of this downward path, we come to have an extremely selfish heart incapable of loving and being loved and actually capable of doing great harm to others.
Within each of us, selfishness and unselfishness are at war with one another. Our good desires are often shadowed over by our bad desires. Even the best things we do are often tarnished by some selfish motivation. On the other hand, even the worst person possesses a conscience which continually urges the person toward unselfish goodness. As was stated in the section above, we can encourage our selfish nature or our unselfish nature by the types of things we allow ourselves to interact with and the types of thoughts we have.
Two Wolves: A Native American Story
An old man's grandson was angry at a schoolmate who had done him an injustice. The grandfather said, "Let me tell you a story, Grandson. I, too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have done something against me, as they feel no sorrow for what they have done. But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die of it. I have struggled with these feelings many times."
He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.
But the other wolf is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."
The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"
The grandfather solemnly replied, "The one I feed."
Notable quotes
Religions have recognized the presence of a great contradiction inside of people too.
This inner conflict is tearing us apart. We are like a cup with a hole in it, made for a purpose that it cannot fulfill, continually draining out when it is meant to be full. We are meant to be good and happy, but due to this contradiction, we never experience complete fulfillment.
The conflicts of our world are due to the conflict within each of us. Because we are not at peace with ourselves, we easily create conflict with others. Woe to anyone who crosses our path when we are in a bad mood! The conflict between men and women, between ethnic groups, between nations — all are reflections of the conflict within each of us.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
English novelist Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tells vividly of inner conflict, or as Stevenson puts it: "the perennial war" between the good and evil selves.
Gentle Dr. Jekyll, a doctor, scientist, and humanitarian, struggles with sins he does not name, sometimes indulging himself in them. He begins to notice in himself two different natures, both of which are a strong part of him: "I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I labored in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering." Both sinner and saint are inside of him; part of him. He concludes that "man is not one, but truly two" and devises in his laboratory a potion that will at last separate the evil nature within him from the good. The evil side comes out in the form of a man he names Mr. Hyde.
When Dr. Jekyll is first taken over by Mr. Hyde's personality, he says, "I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine." Although he inhabits Dr. Jekyll's body, Hyde does not physically resemble the good doctor. Rather, "evil was written broadly and plainly on the face…Evil besides (which I still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay."
"I had now two characters as well as two appearances," wrote Jekyll. "One was wholly evil…inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure…from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone." Hyde is all the evil concentrated in Dr. Jekyll's soul expressed fully for the first time.
Dr. Jekyll labors by day to make scientific discoveries that will help humanity; he treats patients; he even works to undo any evil Hyde has done in the night. His goodness and service to others comforts him, but he begins to notice something. The more he is let out to do whatever he wants, the more powerful Hyde is getting inside of him. He begins "to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown…and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine. Where in the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to point to this: that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse."
Jekyll decides to take the potion no more, and he enjoys a period of peace and joy with his conscience approving of him once again. But after a time "I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as Hyde struggled after freedom. At last, in a moment of weakness, he gives in and drinks the potion again. Hyde is none the weaker for being kept inside so long. "My devil had long been caged, he came out roaring."
This time Hyde commits a brutal murder. Jekyll is firmer in his resolve to never take the potion again. However, he does indulge himself in some sinning, similar to what he had done before he began drinking the potion. Now this alone is enough to transform him into Hyde. At last, knowing that murderous Hyde, his most evil self, has won the battle and is now the stronger of the two, Jekyll commits suicide to end Hyde's crimes.
Discussion
Lasting happiness is possible only when we eliminate the conflict within ourselves. We do this by strengthening the good side of our character so that it wins over us. As we said above, we should fill our minds with good images and unselfish thoughts. Every time a bad thought enters, we should quickly reject it and think about something good instead. This can be a struggle, but we can help ourselves by the methods mentioned in the previous section: reading uplifting literature, listening to inspiring music, doing good deeds, and speaking positively with and about others.
We also should be completely honest with ourselves about our thoughts. We can best do this by confessing them to someone we trust. Evil loves to lurk in dark secret places. Exposing our bad thoughts by telling them to a mature person we trust, such as a parent or minister, can help us to defeat them. We should be careful, however, that in doing so we are not seeking for empathy or justification or to drag someone else down with us, but are doing it out of a sincere desire to be better.
If our thoughts have led to a selfish or wrongful action, we should confess and apologize, seeking to put right any harm we have done. It is much easier to do this if we can empathize with the person we have hurt by putting ourselves in his or her shoes.
We must strive to cultivate good habits and do good deeds, serving others in whatever way we can. For example, if we are tempted to keep some treat for ourselves, eating it alone in secret, we can immediately take a step toward goodness by deciding to share it with someone else. If the telephone rings, instead of staying comfortable and letting another family member jump up to answer it, we can be the one who volunteers first. In small ways like this, day-by-day, we can challenge our selfishness and develop our unselfishness until thinking of others first becomes natural.
We may think that we will profit by living selfishly. The world seems to teach us this. However, when we are selfish, we become so wrapped up in our own needs and desires that we are unable to connect deeply with others. We have built a wall between ourselves and other people. We can never find the happiness and fulfillment we want that way.
You probably have noticed that you are most happy when you are involved in caring for others. When we are genuinely concerned with making others happy, the brightest qualities of our character shine through. We become someone we really like and whom others like as well. Then we will have found true joy, happiness, and peace within.
Questions for Reflection
1. What is your “shadow” side like?
2. What is your “bright side” like?
3. How does each side affect your relations with others?
4. Why is it important to be careful what we allow into our minds?
5. What does it mean to put yourself “in someone else's shoes”?
6. How can this help us to strengthen our good side?
7. How does selfishness separate us from others?
8. How does this prevent us from experiencing true happiness?
9. Have you ever experienced a deep joy through helping someone? Describe it.
Reflection Exercise: “Controlling Myself”
After completing the previous exercise, reflect on the following:
1. Why, if I dislike a certain kind of attitude or behavior in others, do I find it in myself?
2. How successful was I in controlling my undesirable behavior?
3. Why do I find it so difficult to control my own thinking and behavior?
4. What kind of person do I really want to be?
Challenge for the Week
Write down five character traits that you least like about yourself (for example, disloyalty, laziness, lying, etc.). Choose one of these “shadow” traits to focus on during this week. Make a promise to yourself to watch and deal with this particular aspect of your “shadow”. Write down your ideas and plans for changing this shadow into something bright. Check yourself at the end of the week to see how you did. This is a good way to help you become aware of and change undesirable aspects of your character.
Resources
An illustrated narration of the story about the two wolves:Movie made in 1920 of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde